Prior micro tools are capable of determining certain characteristics of a material, however the prior known tools include limitations that are overcome by the present invention. For example, quantitative nano scale characterization devices such as Atomic Force Microscopes (AFM) and other mechanical cantilever based systems are very effective at imaging a surface of a sample at nanometer and sub-nanometer scales, however because of the required variable tip geometry these tools are not suitable to simultaneously determine, with the same probe tip, mechanical properties of the sample. Further, although AFM devices are also operable in a tapping mode or other modes that utilize resonance modes of the AFM cantilever, these modes are also not capable of rendering material properties of a sample, such as elasticity modulus or sample hardness.
Other micro tools such as a quantitative nano indenter may derive elastic contact properties of a sample, however these tools are limited to quasi-static response. Further, the typical electrostatic or voice coils used for actuation and sensing in nano indenters limit the tool's dynamic response based complex modulus characterization technique to bandwidths of 250 Hz or less. Others have described a nano indenter that utilizes a millimeter scale impedance shaker head having a flat frequency response for operational bandwidth up to 1000 Hz. Also, a prior impedance head based system was applied at sub-millimeter size contacts where the complex modulus characterization was derived in-situ from random impulses by means of an FFT analyzer. However, these devices do not describe an interchangeable probe tip that may be utilized to determine nano indentation hardness, elasticity modulus, surface hardness imaging, group velocities, elasticity constants, phase transformation, onset of plasticity, twining, thin film fractures, electrical resistance, surface topology, and other material characteristics of a sample.